"Straight people do all kinds of weird shit. I don't understand straight people."

"Okay, that's fair, neither do I." 

Chris finds a piece of paper and scribbles a number on it. "Here's my phone number."

Sasha puts the number into his phone as Chris 🐍. "I'll text you." 

"Cool! See you."

He goes back and hugs Lev, and then heads home, and definitely does not tell his parents what happened last night. 

Lev does not have sex with Chris in the next week but he sure does jerk off about this possibility extensively. 

He drags himself to class and is uncomfortably aware that his parents probably think he's sneaking out to do drugs and hangs out with Lev and keeps a close eye on the news. 

Asher improves security at Stark Tower and informs the front desk that if a short dirty teenage lizardperson appears he can be sent up to talk to Lev.

I'm boooooored

wanna fool around tonight

tomorrow's friday and I do actually need to go to class sometimes 

otherwise someone's going to start assuming I'm skipping to deal heroin and I do not need that kind of attention on my free time 

tomorrow night? 

you know if you just dropped out we could fuck whenever

unfortunately for that plan a high school diploma is useful for a variety of things, such as jobs 

you can steal shit. or sell drugs. or fuck people for money. or get hired as muscle, there's a ton of people who want mutant muscle

or, y'know, get your billionaire boyfriend to toss you a million bucks

orrrrrr I could do something that isn't gonna make me hate my life 

you are a weird person

but cute

and good at punching

thank you! I try 

that was supposed to be about the being good at punching but thinking about it it's about the whole thing 

tomorrow night at the tower then? 

looking forward to it

Marlo doesn't actually know Sasha's address and doesn't particularly want to — can't accidentally hint at secrets you don't have — so when he has a thing he wants to ask about, the best place for him to try is Stark Tower. 

Somewhere, under all the layers of too much drugs and even more sex, underneath the social rejection and the desire to fuck with his parents, underneath all the cynicism and world-weariness and streetwise savviness (there is less of all three of those than Chris would like to believe), there's an eight-year-old who wanted to play superheroes versus Nazis with the boys instead of playing princesses with the girls.

And what that eight-year-old thinks is:

Holy shit, that's Captain America.

What Captain America thinks is: 

I really hope Asher hasn't acquired another teenage boyfriend. 

Should he cruise Captain America?

Why is he even asking himself this, obviously he should cruise Captain America.

He makes eye contact, makes a show of glancing Captain America up and down, and licks his lips.

— his estimate for 'Asher has acquired another teenage boyfriend' goes down dramatically. 

"Hello," he says, very neutrally. 

He would be mildly disappointed that Captain America doesn't want him to blow him but that is completely lost in all the CAPTAIN AMERICA IS TALKING TO ME.

"Hi! I'm Chris."

Okay that's cute. 

"And I'm Marlo. Nice to meet you."